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Living Space: Park a room in your garage

Got a useless garage stuffed full of rubbish? For £10,000-£20,000  less than the cost of building an extension  you could transform it into a bigger kitchen and utility room or make space for a granny flat, reports Ros Dodd

If your garage has been reduced to a dumping ground for anything that doesn’t fit in the house — old chairs, carpets, the rowing machine that never left the box — it could be time to make better use of it.

Garage conversions are relatively straightforward and, at £10,000 or less for a single-car structure and £20,000 for a double, more cost-effective than adding an extension or loft conversion. Turning your garage into an extra room can also be profitable. Most conversions will add more value to the house than the cost of carrying out the work.

In Bridie Davey’s case, her 1930s-built garage, partly adjoining the kitchen, was too small to accommodate a family-sized car, “so it was just a waste of space”. She hit on the idea of putting a door into the back wall and turning the garage into a utility room.